 Towanroath Shaft Pumping Engine House | |
| Location | |
|---|---|
  Wheal Coates Location in Cornwall | |
| Location | St Agnes |
| County | Cornwall |
| Country | England |
| Coordinates | 50°18′14″N5°13′55″W / 50.304°N 5.232°W |
| Production | |
| Products | Tin |
| History | |
| Opened | 1802 |
| Closed | 1889 (reworked 1911–1913) |
Wheal Coates is a former tin mine situated on the north coast of Cornwall, UK, on the cliff tops between Porthtowan and St Agnes. It is preserved and maintained by the National Trust. [1] [2]
Earliest records indicate a mine at the site since 1692. [3] [4] The present mine opened in 1802 and was closed in 1889 when the price of tin fell. [4] [2] It came into full production in 1815. [3] Flooding and bringing ore to the surface were the main problems of the mine until steam-driven equipment was available, as the mine's underground operations extended for some distance under the sea. [4] [5] The mine was sold in 1844 and thereafter allowed to flood. A new owner reopened the mine in 1872 but work was sporadic until its 1889 closure. [4] [2] For some years, the yield was 20lb of tin per ton of ore. [5] In 1906, new ownership hoped to work the mine for both tin and copper. Wheal Coates [lower-alpha 1] had produced a small amount of copper ore, more than a century earlier. [5] [8]
At the height of its production, 140 people were employed at the site [2] to mine a seam of tin just below sea level but this and a subsequent period of operation from 1911–1913 [9] [10] were not very successful because tin production was sporadic. [4] [lower-alpha 2] The mine was closed permanently in 1914. [11]
The surviving buildings date from the 1870s when deep underground mining began at the site [3] and were stabilised and preserved in 1986. [12] There are three engine houses that formerly housed Cornish engines. Towanroath Pumping Engine House (1872) was used to pump water from the adjacent 600 ft Towanroath shaft. [4] There are two Whim engine houses which were used to crush ore for processing. "Old Whim" was built in the mid 19th century, while "New Whim" was built in the late 19th century. [13] A calciner dating from 1910–1913 when the mine was reopened, roasted the tin to remove impurities such as arsenic. [2]
The surviving structures were all listed as Grade II buildings on 31 October 1988: The Stamps House, [14] the chimney east of the New Whim engine house, [15] the Old Whim and New Whim engine houses, [13] the Towanroath engine house, [16] and the calciner. [17] Wheal Coates is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site. [18]
Porthtowan is a small village in Cornwall, UK, which is a popular summer tourist destination. Porthtowan is on Cornwall's north Atlantic coast about 2 km (1.2 mi) west of St Agnes, 4 km (2.5 mi) north of Redruth, 10 km (6.2 mi) west of Truro and 15 km (9.3 mi) southwest of Newquay in the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape, a World Heritage Site.
The Botallack Mine is a former mine in Botallack in the west of Cornwall, UK. Since 2006 it has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site – Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape. The mine is within the Aire Point to Carrick Du Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and the South West Coast Path passes along the cliff.
The King Edward Mine at Camborne, Cornwall, in the United Kingdom is a mine wholly owned by Cornwall Council.
Mining in Cornwall and Devon, in the southwest of Britain, is thought to have begun in the early-middle Bronze Age with the exploitation of cassiterite. Tin, and later copper, were the most commonly extracted metals. Some tin mining continued long after the mining of other metals had become unprofitable, but ended in the late 20th century. In 2021, it was announced that a new mine was extracting battery-grade lithium carbonate, more than 20 years after the closure of the last South Crofty tin mine in Cornwall in 1998.
St Agnes is a civil parish and a large village on the north coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village is about five miles (8 km) north of Redruth and ten miles (16 km) southwest of Newquay. An electoral ward exists stretching as far south as Blackwater. The population at the 2011 census was 7,565.
Gwennap is a village and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is about five miles (8 km) southeast of Redruth. Hamlets of Burncoose, Comford, Coombe, Crofthandy, Cusgarne, Fernsplatt, Frogpool, Hick's Mill, Tresamble and United Downs lie in the parish, as does Little Beside country house.
The Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape is a World Heritage Site which includes select mining landscapes in Cornwall and West Devon in the south west of England. The site was added to the World Heritage List during the 30th Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Vilnius, July 2006. Following plans in 2011 to restart mining at South Crofty, and to build a supermarket at Hayle Harbour, the World Heritage Committee drafted a decision in 2014 to put the site on the List of World Heritage in Danger, but this was rejected at the 38th Committee Session at Doha, Qatar, in favour of a follow-up Reactive Monitoring Mission.
Wheal Peevor was a metalliferous mine located on North Downs about 1.5 miles north-east of Redruth, Cornwall, England. The first mining sett was granted here in around 1701 on land owned by the St Aubyn family. It was originally mined at shallow depths for copper, but when the price for that metal slumped after 1788, the mine was able to change to mining tin ore, which was found deeper down. In the late 18th century Wheal Peevor had the advantage of being drained by the Great County Adit which was around 100 metres deep here. The mine covered only 12 acres but had rich tin lodes. In addition to tin and copper, pyrite was also mined here between 1872 and 1887.
Wheal Gorland was a metalliferous mine located just to the north-east of the village of St Day, Cornwall, in England, United Kingdom. It was one of the most important Cornish mines of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, both for the quantity of ore it produced and for the wide variety of uncommon secondary copper minerals found there as a result of supergene enrichment. It is the type locality for the minerals chenevixite, clinoclase, cornwallite, kernowite and liroconite.
Wheal Vor was a metalliferous mine about 2 miles (3.2 km) north west of Helston and 1 mile (1.6 km) north of the village of Breage in the west of Cornwall, England, UK. It is considered to be part of the Mount's Bay mining district. Until the mid-19th century the mine was known for its willingness to try out new innovations. Although very rich in copper and tin ores, the mine never lived up to its expectations. During the later part of the 19th century it had several periods of closure, with an attempt to reopen it in the 1960s which was not successful mainly because of bureaucracy. Today the site is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape.
Wheal Busy, sometimes called Great Wheal Busy and in its early years known as Chacewater Mine, was a metalliferous mine halfway between Redruth and Truro in the Gwennap mining area of Cornwall, England. During the 18th century the mine produced enormous amounts of copper ore and was very wealthy, but from the later 19th century onwards was not profitable. Today the site of the mine is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site.
East Pool mine, was a metalliferous mine in the Camborne and Redruth mining area, just east of the village of Pool in Cornwall, England. Worked from the early 18th century until 1945, first for copper and later tin, it was very profitable for much of its life. Today the site has two preserved beam engines and is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site. It is owned by the National Trust.
Consolidated Mines, also known as Great Consolidated mine, but most commonly called Consols or Great Consols was a metalliferous mine about a mile ESE of the village of St Day, Cornwall, England. Mainly active during the first half of the 19th century, its mining sett was about 600 yards north–south; and 2,700 yards east–west, to the east of Carharrack. Although always much troubled by underground water, the mine was at times highly profitable, and it was the largest single producer of copper ore in Cornwall. Today the mine is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site.
Carnebone is a small hamlet and farm in the parish of Wendron in Cornwall, England. It lies to the east of Wendron, to the northeast of Trevenen, just to the west of Seworgan, along the A394 road, 3.8 miles (6.1 km) northeast of Helston.
Holmbush is a village in Cornwall, England that is situated in the suburban area of St Austell. It was a centre for tin and copper mining in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with a few houses to the south of the A390 road. It was developed in the 1970s, with the construction of housing and an industrial estate to the north of the road. Since 1974, the site of Cuddra mine has been developed as Pinetum Gardens, an attraction holding over 6,000 varieties of plants, many collected by the owner on plant hunting expeditions.
Wheal Kitty is a village in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is located about half a mile north east of St Agnes on the Goonlaze Downs plateau. It contains the headquarters of Surfers Against Sewage.
Wheal Metal is a tin-mining sett in west Cornwall, England, UK. Whilst not as famous as neighbouring Wheal Vor, it was thus described by the Mining Journal in July 1885: " Truly this is a wonderful mine—probably the richest tin mine in the world." It also hosts a very remarkable engine house of the mid-19th century that once stood over Trelawney's shaft on Wheal Vor, and since the Wheal Vor area itself has no visible remains, this is the only large surviving engine house of this group of mines which accounted for over a quarter of Cornish tin production in the mid-19th century.
Devon Great Consols was a copper mine near Tavistock in Devon. The lease on the site was taken from the Duke of Bedford in 1844 by a group of investors. The 1,024 shares, sold at one pound each, were divided among the six men. Earlier attempts to mine this property had all ended in failure.
South Wheal Frances is a former mine accessing the copper and tin of the Great Flat Lode south of Camborne in Cornwall, England.
Basset Mines was a mining company formed in Cornwall, England, by the amalgamation of six copper and tin mining setts. It operated from 1896 until 1918, when it was closed due to a fall in the price of tin.
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